On Wed, 31 May 2006 17:02:38 -0700, Jeff Lane wrote:
We do this, but I've still found that I'm
wanting to delete spammer
accounts for the following reasons:
1. The spammer accounts are very old and dormant.
2. The spammers continue to make new accounts.
3. The user list needlessly grows with many banned accounts.
4. The accounts often have usernames that are desired by real users.
This approach might be useful for you:
a) add a 'spambot' group with restricted rights to LocalSettings.php:
$wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['read'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['edit'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['move'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['upload'] = false;
... any other rights that you need to block ...
b) add the spam accounts to that group - manually or by sql
c) apply a patch [*] to hide spam accounts from a default user listing,
and enable it by adding to LocalSettings.php:
$wgHiddenGroups = array('spambot');
This deals with 3 and slightly with 1; it assumes that mostly 1 can be
ignored, and that 2 needs to be handled by other protective means - e.g.
Rob Church's UsernameBlacklist.php extension. To handle 4 you'd need to
rename the account e.g. using Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason's Renameuser.php
extension, but you seem to have a handle on that part already.
If you capture a full enough set of restricted rights, there is also no
longer a need to block the accounts (although you might consider it wise
or appropriate to block them anyway).
[*]
<http://clc-test.flash-gordon.me.uk/wiki/clc-wiki:Config:Wiki#Spam_account_filtering_patch>
(draft article on the test site; might not end up as a permanent link)
[...]
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